Chapter 19: Healthy Salad

After Qin Huai accepted the quest, he found that the quest progress was 6.1%/25% (23/94).

A quick calculation: to reach 25%, he needed to defeat 94 restaurants, meaning the number of restaurants in the surrounding area should be 375.

At this moment, Qin Huai didn't know whether to sigh that there were actually 375 restaurants nearby, or to complain that the reputation of the 23 defeated restaurants was really bad. The Cloud Canteen hadn't even been open for a full day, hadn't even been listed on review websites, and hadn't spent money on promotion, yet it had already defeated them in reputation.

However, this quest clearly couldn't be completed in the short term. Reputation is a very intangible thing; it fluctuates and needs to be accumulated over time.

Qin Huai looked at the 【A Dream Segment of Chen Huihong】 in the quest rewards and felt that he wouldn't be able to see this dream in the short term.

Setting his alarm for 4:00 PM, Qin Huai lay down to take a nap.

When Qin Huai returned to the Cloud Canteen, the two chefs in the kitchen had already started preparing ingredients, and the others were sitting in the lobby chatting.

The Cloud Canteen only sold set meals for lunch, so the preparation was relatively simple; they just needed to stir-fry the dishes on the menu. In the evening, besides set meals, they provided stir-fry, which was slightly harder.

Seeing Qin Huai arrive, everyone greeted him one after another, and even the chefs in the kitchen stretched their necks and nodded to show their respect for the boss.

Through the morning and forenoon business, everyone could see who the pillar of this restaurant was. A hands-off boss who didn't care about anything and didn't cause trouble was certainly happy, but a boss who worked hard, could lead the company to create revenue, and ensure the turnover to keep everyone's rice bowl stable was more worthy of trust and easier to win respect.

Although Qin Huai hadn't recognized everyone yet and couldn't call out many people's names, he still nodded to everyone with a smile, pretending that he recognized them all.

The elm bark was in the warehouse.

Qin Huai didn't buy much, just a small bag. Before coming, he specifically asked the customer service if this elm bark was "original" enough, if it had undergone extra processing, and if it could be eaten directly.

The customer service initially thought Qin Huai was joking, but after discovering that Qin Huai was serious, they indicated that it could be eaten, but "times have changed, old man; these days, even if you educate children with bitterness and sweetness, you don't have to force them to eat tree bark."

As long as it could be eaten, it was fine.

Qin Huai walked into the kitchen with the tree bark.

Both chefs were chopping vegetables in front of the cutting board. Qin Huai chose the cooking station furthest from them, carefully selected the strip that looked easiest to eat from the bag of tree bark, carefully cut out a small section with a knife, and weighed it—3g, just right.

The next second, a prompt appeared on the tree bark.

【Tree Bark F-grade】.

It worked!

Qin Huai looked at the tree bark, thought for a moment, cut another small section, and put it in his mouth to taste it.

Qin Huai searched online for tutorials on eating tree bark. Theoretically, the correct way to eat it should be to dry it, grind it into flour, and eat it as noodles.

The way Chen Huihong and Hui Niang ate it in the dream... was a bit too "original."

Qin Huai wanted to try the original way.

Action is better than thought!

Bite.

It was so hard to chew, like gnawing on soft wood.

The taste wasn't bad, and he could even chew out a hint of sweetness, but it was also very strange, not any normal taste.

Wanted to swallow, couldn't swallow.

It scratched his throat.

After chewing hard for two or three minutes, Qin Huai discovered that Hui Niang in the dream was truly trained; the piece of tree bark she ate wasn't small, and she swallowed it in two or three bites. After the original way failed, Qin Huai directly "borrowed" some vegetables that could be mixed into a salad from the two chefs, chopped them up, mixed them with salad dressing, found a tool to grind the tree bark into small fragments, sprinkled them on the salad, mixed it again, and finally put mango and cherry tomatoes on top as a garnish.

A healthy weight-loss salad was born.

Qin Huai walked out with the salad and asked: "Is anyone hungry?"

As soon as these words were spoken, no one answered.

Everyone didn't quite understand Qin Huai's intention, after all, the Cloud Canteen provided meals. Dinner was served after business hours, and those on the short shift could go eat as soon as they got off work.

Perhaps the silence felt awkward, so a round-faced girl who looked the youngest, even a bit like a high school student, sitting at the table, raised her hand weakly: "I... seem to be hungry."

Qin Huai had a slight impression of this girl; she was an odd-job worker who was cheap and good, had a junior high school diploma, was from Qianzhou, and seemed to have just reached adulthood.

"An..."

"An Youyou," An Youyou said quickly.

Qin Huai placed the salad in front of An Youyou and thoughtfully placed chopsticks: "A new product I researched, taste it if you're hungry."

Although it was a pure vegetable and fruit salad without meat, An Youyou was quite happy to see mango and cherry tomatoes in the salad, picked up her chopsticks: "Mango, the mango here is much more expensive than the one at home, I couldn't bear to eat it. Thank you, Boss!"

Then she started eating in big mouthfuls.

In less than two minutes, she finished a bowl like a whirlwind.

Qin Huai looked at her: "How does it taste?"

An Youyou answered honestly: "Not delicious."

"It's all vegetable leaves, no taste, only the taste of the sauce, and the taste of the sauce is a bit strange, but the mango is delicious."

If it wasn't delicious, that was right; Qin Huai didn't expect this thing to be delicious.

"Still hungry?" Qin Huai asked directly.

An Youyou was stunned by the question, tried hard to feel it, and wasn't very sure: "Seems... not very hungry anymore."

Qin Huai nodded and left with satisfaction, leaving behind the confused An Youyou and the waiters on the side who were very curious about what Qin Huai was doing but didn't dare to ask.

Since the tree bark fragment salad buff worked, it meant that this tree bark could really be used as a spice with a buff. Although the satiety buff was a bit of a "rib," it was at least a weight-loss tool. Maybe he could encounter dishes or dim sum that paired with elm bark to make weight-loss meals in the future.

Not bad, a small gain.

Qin Huai decided to mix the remaining two portions of tree bark into salads and send them to Ouyang and Chen Huihong to see if he could send out a dream.

After Qin Huai left, the waiter next to An Youyou asked impatiently: "Really not hungry? Every time I eat this thing, I want to gnaw on a cow afterward."

An Youyou wasn't very sure either: "I don't know, I was too embarrassed to say just now, this salad tastes really strange, I was afraid I couldn't help it, so I finished it quickly. I don't know what the boss added, the sauce became difficult to eat. Anyway, I have no appetite now, I wanted to eat something before, but now I don't want to eat anything at all."

The waiter gasped: "It's actually that difficult to eat."

"Good thing I didn't say I wanted to eat."

"I didn't expect the boss to be so good at making dim sum, but he can't even mix a salad."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 20 =====